


Conversations with Dead People

by falsettodrop



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Afterlife, Aspects of Ethics and Morality, Character Study, F/M, Future Fic, Getting Together, Relationship Study, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-11-12 01:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18001262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop
Summary: Tessa and Scott die. That’s kind of the beginning.(Or, an exploration in what happensafter.)//Please note before reading: Dear readers of mine, if you never saw the note on my socials, this is abandoned/discontinued. Love to you all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been my passion project. I’ve been working on it for a very long time; planning and brainstorming and world-building has taken months! This is also my first real multi-chapter story, and I’m pretty stoked about it. It will be a build, friends, so please prepare yourselves; this chapter is a little lighter than the others, I will tell you that. Title taken (albeit unintentionally) from that one _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ episode—you know the one.
> 
> I would like to emphasize that I could not have written this without the help from various brilliant individuals:  
> – [only_because3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_because3/pseuds/only_because3) and [runnyc33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runnyc33/pseuds/runnyc33), thank you immensely for your suggestions, and for your aid in sorting out the never-ending list of themes and plot-points. Could not have gotten a handle on this monster without you.  
> – [restlessvirtue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessvirtue/pseuds/restlessvirtue) and [bucketofrice](url), who listened to me whine about this for literal months, but somehow are still so supportive and helpful and eager throughout the planning and writing processes. I honestly could not have successfully fleshed this out without all of your help, and I have the utmost love and support and admiration for you both.  
> – wonderful friends of mine, you know who you are, who always validate and encourage me so that I can push through every chapter and complete the next one. Bless you all, love you loads. <3
> 
> If it interests anyone, the playlist for this story can be found on Spotify, called [The Aftermath](https://open.spotify.com/user/07ihbxgorwgengd149w7ttpzu/playlist/39sNN9bdCq0Ky4cFGVr82g?si=HeTLkCHDR6eJSLP9c08MKw). 
> 
> Please note: the focus in this story encompasses what occurs after **permanent** deaths. Please be aware of that before moving forward, and if you’re continuing to read, I hope you enjoy the ride.

She wakes with a choking gasp. An obscure fog clouds her vision, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut and put her effort into breathing, but it’s to no avail. She feels as if an intense flare is sitting on her chest, brutal and corrosive and biting, and she can’t help but cough so forcefully that she wonders if she’s feeling her lungs shrivelling up inside of her.

She passes out. Or at least, she thinks she does.

And then she wakes up again.

Tessa inhales and thanks the higher deities when breathing comes easier to her the second time around. She swallows and her throat feels remarkably fine despite its earlier dryness. And then she lifts her eyelids.

For a while, all she sees is bright-white sunshine and the wood of the walls and ceilings, and she wonders to herself… where the ever-loving fuck _is_ she?

She sits up quickly, feeling surprisingly refreshed. She was, it appears, asleep on the couch inside a cabin. Which makes absolutely no sense to her whatsoever, considering that she wasn’t planning on being at a cabin today, and it’s not even her family cottage. It’s an unknown expanse that surrounds her, and she looks on at her surroundings in confusion until she sees Scott, sitting at a window seat, quiet as he glances outside the scopious window with a pensive look on his face. She wonders what he’s looking at.

“Scott?” she asks, tone clearer than she expected it to be. It’s usually raspier when she first wakes up. He doesn’t seem to hear her, continuing to watch outside, lost in his head.

She wasn’t supposed to meet up with Scott until today, actually; she had been planning to drive to him. She’s incredibly confused about how she even ended up here in the first place. She’s tempted to go up to him, greet him with more enthusiasm and warmth—it’s been two months since she last saw him, sometime during the summer when they both had a free day and were in London together—but the sheer bewilderment of being in a foreign place momentarily overrides how much she has missed him.

(And yet. Her chest still aches when she sees his form, a comforting presence and a bruising reminder of everything she is and everything she’s not.

It was trial and error throughout their post-retirement years, both of them attempting to work out the kinks in their friendship of codependence.

It was hard. It is hard. It never gets easier being without him, and it never gets easier being with him.

It never gets easier.)

Tessa stands shakily, eyes still blurry from her being unconscious just minutes before. She doesn’t repeat herself, realizing he’s too lost in his thoughts to notice her movements or hear her voice.

He’s at the other end of the room, a bit too far out of reach, so she takes a moment of her time to look around. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. It’s just a cabin. A very lovely cabin, but not one she’s familiar with. The kitchen is quite nice, but it’s a little empty. Come to think of it, the entire room is empty. Not literally—it’s filled with items and clearly looks like a place that anyone could stay at, but that’s exactly what it is: _anyone_ could stay here. It’s not cozy or lived-in and it feels sterile, almost, when she takes a closer look at the lack of dust and spotless floors and flawless cream-white furniture. It clearly doesn’t belong to anyone. She idly wonders if they’re in Montréal, as she moves toward the window, curious to see what it is that Scott is enamoured with outside.

When she reaches him, her first instinct is to touch him. She places her hand on his shoulder, gently, and when he doesn’t flinch away in the slightest, greets him. “Hey,” she says, voice soft so as to not scare him. Her touching him eases the tightness inside her chest; it allows her to breathe easier, finally, and she finds herself not minding that she’s in a place that she does not know.

If anything is wrong, at least she has Scott here with her.

Scott finally turns to look at her, and—wow, he looks good. “Hi, Tess.” His voice sounds remarkably rough, and the look in his eyes is unmistakable: dread, loss, and sadness.

“Are you okay?” she asks him instantly, already knowing he’s not. Scott swallows in response, searching her face as if he’s wondering if something is wrong with _her_. Or, she thinks that that’s what he’s thinking. It’s hit and miss when she guesses these days, but she still usually gets it right. She lowers her voice to adopt a serious intonation, recognizing that he’s off. “What’s wrong?” she tries instead, when he doesn’t answer her first question.

Scott turns away from her, staring at the window once again, looking like a lost little boy. Tessa wants to grab his face with both her hands and turn him toward her so she can get the truth out of him, but when she finally takes a glance at what is outside, the view holds her attention, captures it, taking her far away from this world of worry and into another one of complete and utter confusion.

Her breath catches in her throat and a feeling of uneasiness builds inside of her.

Quite honestly, she isn’t sure what she’s looking at.

Outside the cabin is pure nature: beautiful green, full trees, longrass at one side and bushes at another. Songbirds fly as if nothing is amiss, existing in pure innocent ignorance. A cherry blossom tree stands in the middle of the picture: stoic, tall, and proud. Behind it, an expansive river, flowing its course and naturally in tune with the wind.

Most confusing of all: a pretty little bridge spans across it, leading to absolutely nowhere.

And by _nowhere_ , she means nothingness. There is only white, after ten feet of the bridge. Blurry at the edges, but beyond it, emptiness. If she were to describe it to someone (not that they would believe her) it would be that this is a beautiful landscape, but it turns into an unfinished painting. She wonders if it _is_ a painting, actually, placed outside their window.

But it’s moving.

That can’t be right.

How can there be nothing past the life that she can see, if this is what is outside? It simply doesn’t make sense.

She swallows. “Scott?” Tessa says, quiet. He hums in acknowledgement, still not turning toward her. “What is this?”

“Tessa,” he rasps out. This unsettling feeling continues to rise inside of her, as if her body knows something dreadful her consciousness does not.

She doesn’t know what he’ll say next, but she’s sure that it’ll change everything. She holds her breath, waiting, and then he says it.

“I think we’re dead.”

Her brain shuts down.

“What?” she replies, sharply, immediately. “No. That can’t be. That can’t…”

Tessa looks outside again, toward the abyss. She wonders what would happen if they walked into the whiteness. Would they be able to come back, or would it be like some unique kind of wormhole?

Her eyes sting and her heart, oh, her heart has been pounding inside her chest for a long while now, she realizes. Since she first saw what lay outside the window. But then she notices: her _heart_ —it’s still inside of her chest: racing, _alive_. There’s no way she can be dead.

But Scott’s tone is too serious for him to be joking with her. He must be hallucinating, then. His mind must be playing some awful trick on him; both of their minds must be, on them _both_.

“Tessa,” Scott says, and she realizes he’s been saying that for a minute and she hasn’t noticed. He reaches upward and captures her chin between his thumb and fingers, and turns her to look him in the eye. His eyes have always been so brown, green flecks flickering inside of them in a beautiful combination. Usually, his gaze steadies her. Today, it terrifies her. “Tessa, I’m serious. I need you to breathe.”

She shudders. “We’re not dead,” she tells him, using the last breath that she has inside her.

Then, she passes out again.

 

⋙⋘

 

_Tessa is driving to the brink of her destruction, but she doesn’t know it yet._

_She’s brimming with buoyancy; the excitement of being reunited with Scott is overwhelming her. On the stereo in her car, she’s listening to Sufjan Stevens. She’d never heard of him before, but the song played on the first episode of that one popular show from a few years ago,_ This Is Us _—the one that she never got a chance to watch before when she was too busy competing—and since she finished binging the show a few months ago, the musician has been a constant on her playlists. He’s quite talented and not too intense for when she needs something to listen to that isn’t girl-pop or ballads or nothing at all._

 _(When this memory comes to Tessa later on, she might find humour in it all, well after coming to terms with the fact that she’s deceased. She drove toward her death to the song_ Death with Dignity _._ _It’s a little ironic, isn’t it?)_

_Scott would like the show, she thinks, as she drives along the highway. She isn’t sure if he’s watched it. Scott reminds her of the main character sometimes, actually: a bit country, a lot loving, always striving to do the right thing by his family. A good man, he is. She smiles subconsciously, thinking of how much Scott has grown in the past few years. She’d thought he’d grown up between Sochi and the comeback, but that was nothing compared to who he’d become now. Still a little impulsive, still much too passionate—although that was never a bad thing. But stable, now, in a way he wasn’t before. Sure of himself. Hardworking, but in a different, healthier way. Much more wise and self-aware than he was previously. She’s proud of him._

_She sees him a lot, still, but a lot isn’t enough. Will anything ever be enough? So many years spent together, never apart, hands either in each others’ back pockets or intertwined or in dance hold or touching, touching, touching. They still touch when they’re together, they still have that connection; that’s not something she can ever see changing, the very foundation of their relationship._

_It’s just… different. Different in a more grown-up way._

_She loves and hates it both simultaneously, knowing that this is what is best for them, this is what is supposed to happen. They’re supposed to do this: learn to be apart. They’re supposed to become accustomed to it._

_It’s been years. She can admit it to herself, when she’s being honest and not trying to push through the hard parts, but: she isn’t used to it, not at all. She still sees him enough, but it’s not enough, it’s never going to be enough, and she misses him. God, she misses him._

_Today she’ll see him and she’ll spend time with him on this designated day put aside for them both. Some years ago, about a year and a half after their retirement, they decided that they’d spend their anniversary with one another every year. It was their day. It’s… odd, calling it their anniversary, but that’s what it is. It’s the day that they became what they are._

_What they are, she still isn’t sure. All she knows is despite everything, despite the changes, despite the distance: he’s still everything._

_And she’s still everything on her own, too, so there’s that as well. And if she already has everything, and he’s everything… what does that amount to?_

_Tessa already has all that she needs. She does._

_She does._

_All she knows is that today, she can’t wait to see him again, finally, and have that throbbing feeling that permeates every inch of her skin ease a little once he’s in her five-foot radius. She can’t wait to hug him, feel him real and alive against her skin once again._

_She can feel it in her: today will be the best day she’s had in a long time, and it’ll be all thanks to the abounding happiness that she feels when she’s with him after they’ve spent time apart._

 

⋙⋘

 

The memory comes to her in a floaty dream when she returns to her consciousness.

Then, she hears an unknown voice. “Fuck, can you please chill with the questions? She’s going to wake up soon, little dude, can’t you wait for her?”

A harumph. “Hey, man, I only look a few years younger than you.” It’s Scott speaking now. Her eyes are shut while consciousness rises inside of her; she’s half-attempting to listen to the conversation, even though her brain isn’t really registering its contents.

“In the flesh, yes. But in the mind, I can promise you that I am infinitely more wise.” _This guy sounds like he’s stoned_ , Tessa thinks deliriously, snuggling further into the pillow beneath her.

“I’m sure,” Scott’s voice says drily. “I’m Scott, by the way. And what did you say your name was, again?”

“I didn’t,” the other voice replies. “God, it’s always the fucking Canadians, ain’t it? So gosh darn polite. Of course I know you’re Scott. Who else would you be?”

“Um,” she hears Scott say. “Is the politeness a bad thing?”

The other person sighs. “It’s _annoyingly_ predictable, and I respect it more when people choose to spice things up. My name is Marner, if you care.”

She can hear the excitement in Scott’s voice in her half-conscious state. “Oh! That’s my favourite hockey player.”

“I know,” the other guy replies in amusement.

“That’s…” Scott sounds unsure for a moment, “…weird, actually.”

“I’m weird. That’s my entire shtick. Anyway, your girlfriend is waking up.”

“Oh, actually, she’s not—”

“I don’t care.” The other guy cuts him off, voice monotonous and blunt.

Tessa blinks, bleary-eyed as she takes in her surroundings once again. She’s still in this cabin, for some reason, so that means it wasn’t a dream. She rubs the sleep from her eyes, pushing a plush blanket off of her body. _I need a coffee_ , she thinks instinctively. Although, when she focuses on how she feels inside, she notices that she doesn’t truly seem to be craving one.

“Jeez,” Scott whispers under his breath. Tessa studies them. Those two do not seem to be warming up to one another. “What a fantastic, caring guide we were sent.”

Tessa clears her throat, and the two men turn to look at her with much more affection than they have for each other.

“Hello!” the man says to her, bright and enthusiastic. “You’re dead. Welcome to the afterlife.”

Tessa chokes on air. “Excuse me?”

He stares at her blankly. “I said: ‘You’re dead. Welcome to the afterlife.’”

Well then. It appears she really is dead.

Scott rolls his eyes in exasperation at the man’s thoughtlessness. “That didn’t go over well with _me_ —what makes you think it would be okay to say to _her_ , after she passed out before?”

“I’m brutally honest! What can I say?” the man says, smiling at them both with all of his sharp teeth. He seems ruthless, but with an odd kindness to him beneath the eyes. “I’m the gatekeeper.”

Tessa blinks at him, looking at Scott for an explanation. He shrugs, seeming just as lost (but infinitely more _done_ ) compared to her. Were those words supposed to mean something to them? “The… gatekeeper?”

The gatekeeper smirks. “Indeed. I keep gates.”

Tessa squints in confusion.

He sighs. “That’s a joke. God, you humans are always so serious once we tell you that you’re dead. Can’t make a fuckin’ joke around you for a good few hours.”

She ignores his comment, needing more explicit answers than what he’s offered. “Which gate are you ‘keeping’ exactly?”

“The gate to the afterlife,” he says.

Scott cuts in, frustration seeping into his voice. “I thought this _was_ the afterlife.”

The gatekeeper sagely shakes his head. “Nah, this is _In Medias Res_ —or as we affectionately call it: The Middle.”

“The Middle… of the afterlife?”

He tilts his head from side to side. “Kind of. You’re both here because you have, and I quote from my very thorough assignment folder, ‘some unfinished business’.” He crosses his arms, looking at them with intense curiosity. “Most people who enter the afterlife have to deal with a similar issue, actually. But your case is interesting, and quite peculiar…”

His voice trails off, so Tessa prompts him: “What do you mean?”

He explains. “Simply that people don’t usually enter The Middle with another companion. It’s usually some self-growth and awareness that is gained here, but it’s almost always done in solitary. There have only been few cases where it’s occurred in pairs or threesomes.”

Scott moves from his spot beside the gatekeeper to sit next her on the couch. She shifts toward him, knees touching, needing some comfort in proximity after her discomfort from being in an unfamiliar situation.

Scott asks what is floating around in her mind. “So… why were we placed here together?”

“Because,” the gatekeeper says, grinning with his shark teeth, “your lives were irreversibly intertwined to the point where almost everything that has happened in _your_ life”—he looks at Tessa—“has affected _yours_ ,” he says, looking toward Scott. “And vice versa.”

Deep down, she knows this. But it’s odder to be told this fact by someone who barely knows them. It’s always weird to hear people who don’t know her inexplicably _know_ her.

“And, greater than that…” he continues, as if he’s not dropping a bomb: “you died together.”

She swallows hard. _Of course they did_.

She hears Scott take a deep breath beside her, as if in preparation, and she can practically predict what is going to come out of him next. “So… how _did_ we die?” he asks, voice quiet.

Tessa swallows, glancing at Scott in the process to see if he has any clue. She isn’t sure of that herself; everything from the day of their death is a blur for some reason. The only thing she can remember, now, is driving toward Montréal. But if they died _together_ …

The gatekeeper holds up his hands, like they’ve come to a brilliant revelation. “That, my friends, is your Task.”

Scott tilts his head and Tessa shakes her head, both in confusion. “Our Task?”

“Yes,” the gatekeeper replies, feeling around his jacket as if he’s looking for something. “Your Task. Everyone who dies has a Task. Yours is to figure out how you died.”

Tessa bristles a bit inside. “That’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think? We’re dead. Don’t we deserve some answers?”

The gatekeeper rolls his eyes at her prissiness. “That’s just how it is, my child.” _Child?_ He couldn’t be more than a few years older than her, to be honest. “Once you figure it out, slowly, you will get your answers. But you need to go through the steps of Lifting The Fog.”

“What’s _that_?” Scott asks, seeming to get more and more frustrated. “God, does this place come with a thesaurus? Because I’m getting a little lost, here.”

“Actually,” the gatekeeper replies brightly, “yes!” Then, he finds what he’d been looking for inside of the inseam of a jacket pocket.

A… pamphlet?

If Tessa weren’t so appalled, she’d laugh. “You have _pamphlets_ for the afterlife?” she asks in disbelief, taking it from the gatekeeper when he reaches over to hand it to her.

“Ugh, I know, right? I’ve been telling them to redo the program for _years_ , but _nooooo_ , I don’t ‘have enough experience’”—he says, making air quotes and rolling his eyes—“to contribute my opinions. Nonsense, if you ask me.”

This entire thing is nonsense, if you ask Tessa.

“And it’s an instruction manual, not a pamphlet,” he corrects her. As if that matters.

She holds the manual out between her and Scott, flipping it open to glance at its first page. It’s not too heavy—only around twenty pages. On the outside, it reads, in big block letters, looking incredibly unprofessional: _CONGRATS, YOU’RE DEAD. HERE ARE SOME STEPS FOR DEALING WITH THAT._

The gatekeeper continues: “It outlines the steps you must take to completing your Task. In your cases, that means remembering the day of your death. Lifting The Fog is what all humans must do once they enter The Middle; its meaning comes from lifting the burden of your problems from your shoulders, or the heaviness of repressed issues in your past life, by discussing them.” He waves his hand around. “Usually this is done with a holographic facilitator when it’s just one person here, but you two are required to do it with each other.”

She can’t help but feel overwhelmed by all the information being thrown at her. In typical Tessa fashion, she attempts to understand by studying the material, skimming the words on the first page. However, Scott, unlike her, was always an auditory and hands-on learner. “So we need to talk things out?” he clarifies. “Sort of like… therapy?”

“Exactly!” the gatekeeper shouts with enthusiasm, jumping onto the coffee table in a surge of excitement. She leans back, shocked by his antics, but genuinely amused by his distinctive personality.

Scott groans at his response. “I’ve had _so much_ therapy. Enough therapy to last a lifetime. Enough therapy that _did_ last a lifetime. Now I need more?”

“Er,” the gatekeeper replies, looking sheepish. “...yes?”

She sighs. This process seems much too complicated for her to handle. She’s going to need to read this entire manual and study it twice before she gets the hang of this.

The gatekeeper looks at their exhausted faces. “But the payoff will be worth it! Slowly, as you talk through issues, the cloudiness in your minds in relation to the day of your death will be cleared, revealing to you the way in which you died. And once you remember how you did die, The Gates will appear. You see how the outside fades into nothing? They’ll show up right there.” He smiles reassuringly, as if he’s trying to comfort them, but it also looks slightly pinched. She wonders how many times he’s delivered this speech to dead people. “So, what do ya’ say?”

Scott slumps on the couch. “I say: I thought the afterlife was supposed to be _relaxing_.”

“Well, you’re not at the afterlife yet,” the gatekeeper reminds him, voice wry. “Do a little more work and we can all move the fuck on, ‘kay, children?”

“We aren’t children,” Tessa and Scott reply in unison, then look at each other in surprise. It never gets old having moments like that.

“Sure, children,” the gatekeeper replies with a shit-eating grin, clearly just fucking with them. “I’m off, now, to go drink a piña colada. They have unlimited drinks at the bar.”

 _What bar?_ Tessa thinks in bemusement, briefly contemplating if their gatekeeper is drunk. She’s not sure if she wants to know.

“What if we have questions, or we don’t understand the pamphlet thingy?” Scott asks, an urgency to his voice. “Is there Google in this place?”

Tessa snorts, covering her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing too hard. She’s pretty sure there’s no WiFi in heaven, if that’s what this is.

The gatekeeper hops off the table without answering Scott’s (rhetorical, she hopes) question, and then she realizes. “Oh, wait!” Tessa tries to stop him, realizing she forgot an essential step. “What’s your name?” She feels like he said it to Scott earlier, but she was half-asleep then and has already forgotten.

The gatekeeper lets out this loud, frustrated sigh. “God, they _really_ don’t pay me enough for this shit. My name is Buttercup. Peace, my dudes. Ring me if you need me.”

He throws up a peace sign and promptly disappears into nothingness like a bizarre magician.

“Buttercup?” she says to herself. What a peculiar name for a human. Although, her first dog was named Buttercup, after _The Princess Bride_ , and suddenly she feels a strange affection for the man who just left.

“He told me his name was Marner,” Scott says from beside her, seeming slightly irritated. “After my favourite hockey player.”

Tessa furrows her eyebrows, realizing she’s been duped. “And Buttercup, after—”

“—your childhood dog, I know,” Scott finishes, lip twitching in amusement. “Who knows what the guy’s real name is.”

All these years, and they’re still on the same wavelength. She snorts. “We should just call him Wacky Waititi. You know, because he seems like a wacky version of Taika Waititi,” Tessa comments, laughing at her own comparison.

He blinks at her. “Who is that?” Scott asks, blankly.

Tessa suppresses a smile. She should have expected that reaction; Scott hasn’t become a connoisseur of popular culture despite his improvements in recent years. “Nevermind. Just know that the resemblance is uncanny.”

Scott relaxes into the sofa, mind elsewhere. “Okay.”

She sighs, leaning her head back against the sofa. “So… what now?”

“I don’t know, T,” Scott says to her, voice gentle. As if he knows she needs him to reply with care right now. “I just…”

He reaches over to hold her hand, but she feels herself grow cold. She doesn’t know if she wants to be comforted by him, to have him touch her for reassurance. His hand doesn’t feel warm; instead, it feels heavy, too much sensory overload for her at once.

She’s unbelievably confused.

Easily, she squeezes his hand in lieu of thanks, then untangles their fingers.

Silence overcomes them.

Tessa wrings her hands together, trying to come to terms with this new reality. She glances around the room, this unfamiliar space that she’s being forced to live in, and suddenly, she misses her family’s cottage. Suddenly, she misses her _family_.

God, her family.

She’s never going to see them again.

And Scott’s never going to see his again, either, she realizes. She looks at him, knowing the same thoughts are passing through his head as the silence falls over them, like an all-consuming presence. Her heart hurts for him, and for herself.

The instruction manual in her hand suddenly weighs as much as a brick. God, she doesn’t even know how she _died_. How, apparently, _they_ died.

She drops it on the coffee table in front of her as if it’s on fire.

Scott might be the most comforting presence in her life, but right now, he feels all too suffocating. Or, actually, that’s unfair. It’s this entire place that feels suffocating, not him. She feels like it’s swallowing her whole, gnawing at her ripe flesh until she’s spat back out a bright, shiny person. Right now, she doesn’t feel bright and shiny. Nothing like that at all.

She’s dead, and so is her best friend.

“I’m going to walk around, okay?” she tells Scott, voice butter-soft, not wanting to hurt him.

She doesn’t want to unfairly attribute her sadness to Scott, so she does the only thing she knows how to: Tessa walks away from him and toward the kitchen, recognizing that right now, all she needs is a moment alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, folks. Things will be getting serious now that the set-up is out of the way, and it will only get more intense from here on out. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Thanks to the same individuals that I named in chapter one. I will probably keep reiterating this, because I couldn’t write this without you all. <3

She walks amongst the grass outside of the cabin, taking a moment to breathe in the sheer tranquility of this unknown space. Her movements come easier once a sense of serenity envelopes her body. It might be the scenic view in her vicinity, or possibly the illusion of earth everywhere she turns, but the thought that floats into her subconscious is one that, really, doesn’t quite make sense: she does not truly feel dead. How can she be dead, she wonders, when all that surrounds her is nothing but _life_?

She had thought that death would be dark. She hadn’t ever imagined a full-fleshed afterlife and what that might entail, but death had always seemed grim, violent, and frightening. She had been too young to contemplate it seriously, always working toward an end-goal instead of envisioning that she may already be on course for annihilation.

She had been too young to die.

As she digests her surroundings—observing the harmony of the breeze filtering through the branches of the trees, the cherry blossoms falling leisurely to the ground, and the sweet singing sound of the river crashing against itself—she can’t help but marvel: if this is death, it is glorious.

Tessa takes a seat at the edge of the river, making sure not to sit on the bridge built over it, but on the curve of the land beside it. She’s slightly terrified of that bridge; its looming nature and vast nothingness beyond a certain endpoint frighten her the most of everything she’s seen in this place. The unknown always scared Tessa growing up. It’s why she likes to prepare, read, learn, study, _practice_ , before she dives headfirst into any nameless voids. The unfinished horizon before her feels much too literal for her; it feels like a constant reminder of all of the unfinished conversations that lie ahead.

She shucks her shoes on the dirt of the floor and makes herself comfortable at the riverside, sinking her feet in the water beneath her, taking a moment to breathe. Then a question comes to her: is she really breathing if she’s dead? She inhales, hyper-aware of the expansion of her chest as she does it. Her lungs _seem_ to still be working inside of her ribcage, and she _thinks_ she can still feel her heart thundering in her chest, but that might all be a deception in and of itself. Perhaps she’s just remembering what it’s like, and her body is simply there, imitating the motions she went through whilst she was alive. Perhaps, in the same way that this scenery could be a farce, her own body may have become some phantom hallucination as well.

God, her head hurts.

This is much too complicated for her to comprehend on a natural level; the layers of life beyond death are too complex to unravel in one sitting. She needs to observe with time and experience, and then potentially, eventually, she’ll begin to understand how this life-after-death situation works.

She almost wishes she'd taken the manual with her before leaving to explore this strange new world, but even a glance had overwhelmed her, every word and concept so dauntingly unfamiliar. And there is also the overwhelming fact that she is, for all intents and purposes, ‘gone’. She doesn’t exist anymore, not on Earth, not among the living.

She is dead.

Not only is she dead, but she died alongside Scott. He’s dead, too. She mourns for him, feels empathy for how devastating this must feel for him as well, but briefly, just for a second, she takes a private, selfish moment to imagine the headlines they might be attracting down below.

_Virtue and Moir, notoriously so attached at the hip that they died together. Virtue and Moir, together even in death. Virtue and Moir, irrevocably linked forever. Virtue and Moir._

(Never just Virtue. Never just Moir. Together, always: an honour and a curse all in one.)

She wonders what her mom will say. Wonders how she’ll feel. Wonders if she’ll be okay.

It pains her to know she’ll be without her mom here.

Her mother always told her, as she grew older, to create her own identity, to become her own person, to remember she was more than just an elite skater. And Tessa knew those things, she was certain of them—but at the end of the day, skating is where it started and skating is where it ended. Skating is the reason she became who she is: fierce, patient, driven, kind, strong. Not only is that a fact, but skating with _Scott_ was everything there is about her.

She adores him, she owes everything to him, and she could not be who she is without him—but it was difficult, if she’s honest, to be independent when every part of her started where Scott ended. She’s grateful for his presence and she would never want to be without him. She wouldn’t trade their moments for anything. But it was still hard being a person when you were never just _one_ : you were one of two, one half, never entirely a whole.

It was so, so hard.

She had tried to become something on her own in the past few years, to stop being part of a duo. Not out of spite, but just to be something real on her own, to gain her own sense of identity. But somehow, even in death, the fate of the universe had destined for her to be tied to him. It seems that all the work she had put into building her own empire would be for nothing, because when it came down to it, she’d never be anything more than this: a lifelong partnership, a pair of two, a dynamic duo. Virtue and Moir.

It sounds bad, but she doesn’t mean for it to, she really doesn’t. She can be thankful she has him and resentful that she’d never become something without him at once. Life was more complex than one or the other. Life was more than black and white.

Life had always been much too complicated. She had thought that at the very least, when she died, things might be easier.

Yet, here she was, stuck in The Middle, evidently not on a pathway to clarity.

There’s a shuffling sound behind her, getting closer and closer, and she knows that someone is walking through the grass to join her by the river. She looks down at her clasped hands and the water droplets coating her feet. There’s only one person it could be, after all: she’s here with him and only him. No other real life forms are among them, besides the songbirds and the incredible vastness of nature.

“Tess?” she hears from behind her. His voice sounds timid, like he’s unsure if she’s done having her moment alone.

Tessa swallows deeply, then turns to look at him with a small smile. “Hi. You can sit, if you want.”

Scott’s shoulders relax, the corner of his mouth quirking in a reciprocal smile as he moves to take a seat by the edge with her. “How are you feeling?”

“Don’t know,” she replies honestly, turning away from him and toward the white, empty space a few metres past the river. Unfinished earth is all to behold at that end of the landscape. “I’ve just been sitting, thinking.”

He hums in understanding. “About?” he prompts, not trying to be pushy, but simply curious.

She pauses, unsure of how to answer that question without hurting his feelings. “About my mom,” she says instead, softly.

“Oh.” Tessa observes him then, and watches as a bone jump in his jaw. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about my mom, too.”

“I’ll miss my mom. I’ll miss Alma, too. I’ll… miss everyone.” She shivers despite the rays of sunshine warming her skin.

Scott nods, an overpowering sadness creeping into the corners of his eyes. “We’ll both miss everyone. It’ll be… hard. Being without them.”

She sighs, and then an idea crosses her mind, a silver lining in this devastating circumstance. “Do you think that maybe… once we get to The Gates, we’ll be able to see everyone we’ve missed? Everyone that’s passed? Like my grandma, and—”

“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that,” Scott mutters. A hopeful lilt enters his voice when he continues. “Maybe I’ll get to see them again.” Them goes without saying—his grandfather, his friends, and everyone else he didn’t get to hold onto for long enough.

She’s quiet. “We should ask the gatekeeper about that when he comes back.”

“I think we’re supposed to call him back when we need him,” Scott replies, kicking the surface of the water with his feet. “I was looking at that booklet thing. It said we just need to say a certain phrase and he’ll show up.”

Tessa blinks. “Oh. Interesting system they have over here.”

Scott snorts, knocking their shoulders together. It’s only then that she realizes how close he sat himself beside her. The length of their bodies are touching, although she hadn’t noticed it before, accepting him naturally as another limb to her being. “It’s special, isn’t it? This little place that they’ve created here.”

She studies the magnificent land encircling them. “Yeah, it’s beautiful.” She releases a small sigh, wondering how long they’ll get to stay here before they’re forced to move on.

“T,” Scott starts, sounding hesitant. She stills, waiting for him to ask her the inevitable. After all: he’s always known her just as well as she’s known herself. “Tell me the truth. Are you alright? You seemed so lost, before.”

She gulps, blinking hard. “I mean… Scott, we’re dead.” Then, she turns to search his face. “It’s a hard pill to swallow, you know?”

Scott breathes in deep, nodding in consideration as his eyes sweep over every inch of her face. “It’s definitely crazy.”

“There’s so much we didn’t get to do,” she whispers, her eyes finally beginning to sting. “So much we didn’t see.” She rests her head on his shoulder and his arm goes to wrap around her, warm and secure. Her solace in a world of imbalance.

She’ll never have kids, she realizes staggeringly. She’ll never get married, or fall in love.

She tilts her head upward against his shoulder to examine the lines of his face and the motion of his wet eyes, blinking too hard. Then, it hits her: Scott. Scott will never have kids either. He’ll never get married, he’ll never have a family, he’ll never get to coach an Olympic team. All of his dreams, obliterated. All of _her_ dreams, vanished, in a second’s time.

Her hand reaches out and she intertwines their fingers. He squeezes back, hard and needy, and that tightening movement is simulated in her heart. She feels the air knock out of her chest in an instant, draining her of oxygen.

Let it be known: there is no good in being dead.

Her vision blurs. “I’m sorry, Scott,” she tells him. Her voice is unmistakably anguished, and she can feel the tears building up rapidly against her waterline. “I know how much you wanted… everything.” She can’t even say it aloud, she can’t possibly bear to. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

She knows he’s crying now, too, from the way his hand flies up to drag along his face, but she doesn’t dare to look at him, burrowing her head in his shoulder. Her tears drop onto the cotton of his shirt, soaking into the fabric. The his arm shifts around her, hand switching from its place on her bicep to wrap in her hair, dragging along the strands in a soothing motion. It’s relaxing her in a way that only Scott would know; they may not have ever crossed any line beyond friendship, but he’s always known her more intimately than her significant others. It is intuitive, the way his body falls naturally in tune with her own.

“No need to say sorry,” he whispers, turning into the crown of her head and speaking against her hairline. She aches for him, for the life that he’s lost and everything that comes with it. “We’ll get through this. I promise, Tessa. We can do this, as long as we’re together.”

And for all the quiet, secret remarks she held about resenting that very phrase—together, always, never apart—she’s also sure in the fact that he’s never uttered more wonderful words in her much too short, fantastical life.

 

⋙⋘

 

_Seeing him again, remembering what it’s like to love him and be loved by him, feels as effortless as breathing. From time to time she forgets what it entails, the work that it takes to do it, because that action has always come so naturally to her. It’s never been something she’s had to think about, forever engrained in her basic biology._

_He’s her greatest, oldest friend._

_There’s a moment when she steps inside the restaurant and he’s in the entryway, waiting for her before they take their seat. The hostess isn’t there and they’re alone, and it’s instinctive when she locks eyes with him, moves toward him in automatic, like they’re no longer humans, they’re merely magnets, gravitating toward each other in one smooth, slow movement. Her arm snakes its way around his waist and both of his wrap around her shoulders; she burrows her face in the crook of his neck and breathes in deep as his hand sinks into her hair, entangling his fingers in her locks._

_They haven’t even spoken. They haven’t said hello, exchanged pleasantries, or anything of the like. It’s been two months, and yet. They haven’t felt the need to say anything at all._

_But do they really need to, when a look was all it takes? Isn’t this—an impressive, squeezing hug—the natural way to greet one another when they’d been apart?_

_(Touch always had been their love language.)_

_She inhales his scent for a few seconds, taking a moment to remember how he smells and the feel of his body against her own. She cherishes this friendship so much that it feels painful to be away from him these days, even despite the fact that it’s natural to go their separate ways._

_People grow apart from each other when they get older, don’t they?_

_All they’re trying to do is grow up._

_As she unravels herself from him, taking a slight step back to cast her eyes over his handsome face, she reminds herself: letting him go_ is _growing up._

_(It doesn’t matter what she wants. It doesn’t matter what she doesn’t want, either. Those notions are incompatible: the life she wants for herself, the goals she set on her own, and what her body naturally craves. Away from him, not including him, with him. All contradictory.)_

_“It’s so good to see you,” she tells him softly. A smile blooms on his face, one that’s unbelievably bashful despite the fact that he’s known her his entire life and she’s said this to him probably a million times before. It makes her feel like he cherishes her words just as much as she cherishes these moments she allows herself to spend with him._

_He zips in, quick, to press a tender kiss against her temple. “Missed you, Virtch. How goes it?”_

_And so she tells him, as she walks toward the table, as they take their seats opposite one another, as they order their food. She tells him, despite having already texted him most of it through the past two months, about how Jordan is driving her crazy with her wedding preparations. She tells him about her business meetings, and her recent doctors appointment that kind of freaked her out a bit but turned out to be nothing, and the people she has been networking with since she completed her MBA a few years ago._

_She’s told him all of these things already, but it’s different, okay, it’s_ different _telling him aloud when she can see the fond look on his face for all that she’s accomplishing on her own._

_“You’re making me look bad, T,” he says jokingly as he cuts into his steak. “All I’ve got is coaching.”_

_“You’re coaching at one of the best schools in the country,” she counters. At first, he’d shopped around for a year or so while they toured, trying to get a feel for what place might suit him best. But in the end he’d ended up, a few years after retirement, where he was most comfortable: with Marie-France and Patrice, working as a billed coach, taking on a few junior teams and helping out extensively with a top-tier senior one._

_“Yeah, yeah,” he says easily, mouth full of meat. There’s a smile there, hidden beneath his full cheeks, that she takes a moment to admire._

_She smiles in response. “How’s Kayla doing?” she asks, trying to sound as normal as possible. She likes Kayla, she does—as weird as it may sound, she really doesn’t mind one of Scott’s girlfriends. She’s easygoing and friendly and she seems to understand the unwavering connection she and Scott will always share, and the same could not be said for his previous partners._

_There is only one thing._

_He smiles again, slightly, seemingly grateful for her efforts to include his significant other so casually. “Yeah, she’s good. Back home in Vancouver for the month, though.” His mouth twists downward, and Tessa feels a pang in her heart for him._

_The one thing: Kayla doesn’t live with Scott in Quebec; in fact, she lives at the other end of the country._

_He probably misses Kayla when she’s gone, but that doesn’t explain much to Tessa when she’s always wondered: why doesn’t he date someone nearby, instead of having to fly back and forth between home and elsewhere? Scott has done this song and dance before, and they both know how it ends: always in ultimatum, always in devastation._

_She isn’t sure if he knows what he really wants, to be honest._

_“It must be hard,” she says to him, trying to be as empathetic and understanding as possible._

_He laughs, quick and short. “Yeah, it’s not easy, but I mean… we’re dealing with it.” He shrugs, then spears a roasted potato with his fork, popping it into his mouth. “It’s been good, though, having Maple with me. He’s a good companion.”_

_“He’s adorable,” Tessa says, a huge smile taking over her face, thinking of the sweet Cocker Spaniel that Scott had adopted a month ago. “All the pictures and videos you’ve sent me…”_

_“Such a quick learner, too,” Scott says, eyes wide, twinkling with pride. “Still keeps me up barking in the middle of the night sometimes, though. But he’s getting better.”_

_“Precious little thing,” Tessa coos. “I can’t wait to meet him later. You are introducing us, right?”_

_“Of course!” he says, as if offended she’d think otherwise. “Gotta make my two besties duke it out. Only one may survive.” He pretends to wield a sword, as if acting out a battle between her and his puppy._

_She snorts. “Not sure if I want to battle with Maple. I’m definitely not winning that one.”_

_“Hey, where’s that classic Tessa Virtue confidence?” he asks, insulted on her own behalf._

_“I left it on the ice when we were performing,” she replies wryly, lips twitching in amusement. He laughs, switching topics to ask if she read that book he’d suggested a few weeks ago, and they launch into a discussion of the contents as they finish the rest of their meals._

_During this, his hand sits there, resting on top of the table unassumingly. Her knees are already pressed against his and it’s good, it’s enough, but her palm still yearns to rest over his in response. It’s what she’d always done while they were growing up, not worrying about what it meant or why she needed it. But since they retired, the excuses, her reasoning to touch him—they have lost their true value, turned obsolete._

_She doesn’t need to do that kind of thing anymore. She can’t do things like that. It isn’t healthy; it’s codependent, it’s unnecessary, it’s wrong._

_(She needs to let him go. She needs to, she’s trying. It’s been years. But it isn’t getting any easier, and the effort she puts into doing it, the way that effort pains her, isn’t lessening at all._

_God, will this ever get easier?)_

_She tries to stop thinking about it and enjoy the rest of their meal together. Today is their day; she isn’t going to let her internal angst ruin it for them._

 

⋙⋘

 

Her head is still resting against Scott when the memory comes to her. It comes in the same way the first one had, but this time in a way that she’s more cognizant to: in pieces, a brief moment from the day they had passed, entering her consciousness. She doesn’t know what they did, exactly, that triggered this flashback, but they must have done _something_ right for it to appear to them.

Her tears are drying against her cheeks as she focuses on the memory. “Did you feel that?” Tessa asks quietly, into his shoulder.

He pulls away from her. She looks at him in surprise, confused by why he has moved. She had thought they were having a moment, that they’d been comfortable before. But when she sees the look on his face, guarded and contemplative, she knows he’s suddenly plagued with more, newer internal worries. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I… I remembered.”

She watches him closely, unsure of how this works. “Not all of it though, right? Because—”

“No, just… just the restaurant,” he replies, quietly. “I need… I’ll be in the cabin, okay?”

He slips away from her, and she can’t help but feel like a part of her has left with him.

She allows the water to flow against the heel of her foot for a minute, wondering what it was about the memory that turned him so shaken. She thinks back, contemplating, analyzing every bit of it. But in the end, she comes away with nothing.

She shakes out her feet, attempting to dry them as quickly as she can, while she gathers her shoes and stands. She knows that it might be a little nosy, and that maybe she should give him time alone in the same way he had given it to her, but she also knows Scott. She knows who he is and what he needs. He needs to talk about things, get them off his chest, and she’s the only person he has here. She’s all he has right now, and he’s all that she has, and she is going to be there for him if he needs it.

She walks into the cabin after five minutes of idling outside, sliding the back door shut with a quiet thud. Scott glances up from his place by the coffee table; he seems to have been looking through the booklet again, studying its information with intrigue. But, besides that, he also looks somewhat bothered, as if something heavy has begun to weigh on his mind.

She joins him, sitting down on the sofa. “What’s wrong?” she asks without preamble.

“I needed a moment,” he says simply, not elaborating further.

It’s definitely invasive, she knows this, but she can’t help but ask: “Why?”

He’s silent. “I was thinking about Maple,” he tells her. She doesn’t know if it’s the entire truth. “Do you think he’s alright? You don’t think he…” _died with us_. It goes without saying.

She’s not sure, honestly, but she wants to reassure him. “I’m sure he’s alright,” she says soothingly. “He’d be here with us if he did, right?” She thinks that’s how it must work.

“Hm, maybe,” he replies, lost in thought. There’s a crease in his eyebrow that she wants to help relax.

She can tell there’s more, so she pushes. “What else? It’s not just Maple that you’re thinking about.”

Scott taps his fingers along the coffee table, seemingly gathering his thoughts. “I… remembered Kayla,” he says quietly.

By this, Tessa realizes something of importance that he is saying by omission: he only _just_ remembered. He _forgot_ Kayla. For only a moment, but there it is: he’s been dead and has had ages to be by himself, and he hasn’t thought of his girlfriend once.

She has no idea how to approach this subject with him. “Christ, Scott,” is all she thinks to mutter. Tessa will never understand, for the life of her, how he does it.

His face tightens. “I know,” he grits out. “You don’t have to say it. I’m horrible.”

She feels the need to defend him instantly. “No, you’re not.”

His head turns sharply. “I forgot my girlfriend.” He pauses. “Or… maybe it’s ex-girlfriend, now. Jesus.” He balls his fist, rubbing into his eyes.

“In your defense, you didn’t see her much.”

“I saw her _enough_ ,” Scott replies, defensively. “It was just long-distance. We still _talked_.”

“Well,” she says bitingly, without thinking, “it doesn’t get more long-distance than this.”

Instantly, she wishes she could take it back. His face shuts down, becomes more guarded than he’s ever been around her, and she feels absolutely awful. Who is she, of all people, to say that kind of thing to him, even as a stupid joke?

“Tessa,” he admonishes. Her heart pounds in regret; she didn’t mean to overstep. “You—”

“I’m so sorry,” she says with feeling, covering her mouth in horror. “I didn’t mean it like that. It was a joke, I swear. A bad one. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

She’s a mess. This death situation is making her more of a mess than she already had been.

He sighs, scrubbing his face with the palm of his hand. “Yes, you did.”

She’s at a loss. “No, I…” She can’t finish it. As much as she hated that she said the words to him, there’s an undercurrent of truth there, one that shares more of her opinion than she has in the past.

“You did,” he says quietly. She’s hurt him. She can feel it coming before he says it, knowing that he’s scraping the surface of all the material that he has on her. One doesn’t get to know someone as well as they do and not know how to hit each other exactly where it hurts. “I don’t know why you have an opinion. At least I _tried_ to make something work.”

Her mouth drops open slightly, stunned. “I… I tried to make things work.”

His face hardens. She know he’s hurt, and that’s the only reason why he’s saying this, but it doesn’t make what he says next feel any less horrible. “With who? Those assholes that you dated? Are you trying to tell me that you actually thought that any of those guys were good enough for you? That you’d end up with them eventually?”

She swallows hard, the force of his statement hitting her so hard that she can’t feel anything but pain. “Hey, that’s unfair,” she says, quiet in her suffering.

“You’re not exactly being fair to me right now, either,” he returns, looking away, as if he can’t bear to see her.

“I know, but… I did try. I did.” She doesn’t know who’s she’s trying to convince: him, or herself.

His eyes are dark when they fall back on her form, shoulders locked in preservation. He’s silent for a moment, and she watches him, seeing the exact moment his brain goes, _fuck it_. “You don’t date people who are real options, Tessa. You date all these people who you _know_ you’ll never end up with.” He sighs in frustration. “I’m not trying to attack you, T. I’m just telling you the honest version of what I think, for once.”

“For once?” she laughs, shortly. “You’ve always made it clear to me that you don’t like the guys I date. You’ve never been happy for me.”

“That’s because they don’t make _you_ happy!” he bursts out. “Why would I want to see you go through that? I just want you to be happy, Tessa.”

There’s a lump in her throat. “Who are you to tell me that I don’t date real options, when _you’re_ the one that is constantly dating unavailable women?”

His jaw tightens from his place on the couch, and he stands. “What do you mean by that?” he asks, crossing his arms. “I’ve had tons of long-term relationships.”

Tessa scoffs, counting off her fingers. “With women in other relationships, with women who live in another province or country, with women who don’t actually _love_ you for you, but for who you are and what you represent.” She doesn’t know where this is coming from, why she’s badgering him with this. She didn’t mean for this conversation to spiral out of control.

“So you’re saying every relationship I’ve had has been a farce?” he asks her, voice dark and offended.

“No, I’m saying you’re afraid of real love, of real commitment,” she finishes, like she’s stating the thesis of an argumentative essay.

Scott looks away from her. “Well, I’m saying that you’ve been completely emotionally unavailable to your exes, and that dating them was just passing time.”

Blood is rushing through her ears, blocking out all the sweet sounds of the sanctuary they’ve fallen into. “Glad we discussed this, then,” she bites out.

He laughs, no amusement to his tone. “Nice to know what you really think of my love life, T,” he replies sarcastically.

She takes one last look at him, then walks away, climbing the stairs and needing to get away from him at once.

 

⋙⋘

 

She doesn’t know how long it is between the time that she leaves him and the time he comes to check on her. She doesn’t know if time even exists in a quantifiable manner in the afterlife. She doesn’t know _anything_ : why she blew up at him, how their conversation turned from her wanting to be there for him to them going at each other’s necks.

She hates what death is turning them into.

There’s a knock at the door, one she doesn’t respond to, simply sitting with her head against the headboard of the fluffy, white bed. Scott opens the door when she doesn’t respond, peeking his head in and looking rightfully abashed. “Tess… can I come in?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Will you yell at me again?” she asks him, both tired and accusing. “Because I’ll be honest with you, Scott: this death thing is exhausting me a lot, and I don’t want to fight with you.”

He enters the room, sitting at the foot of the bed. He’s far from her like this, but she thinks a bit of distance would do them good. “I don’t want to fight with you either,” he tells her, tracing circles in the duvet. “You’re all I have left.”

A staggering breath stutters out of her, the weight of that statement capturing her in a magnificent way. She blinks hard, then says to him, needing him to know: “I love you, Scott. You know that, right?” It’s her way of apologizing without really apologizing; she doesn’t think she can say the word _sorry_ until they’re done talking it out.

He nods, grave and understanding. “Yeah, Tess. You know I love you, too, right?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out. “I… I think that fight that we had… it’s been a long time coming.”

She can see him holding back a _Tragically Hip_ joke, refraining from singing in order to be serious. “I think… I know the execution was bad. But I’m glad we finally told each other the truth about what we’ve been thinking all along.”

She nods. “I guess that’s a good thing, yeah.”

He clears his throat. “So… you hated her, huh?” he questions, referring, she thinks, to his girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. She’s not sure where the death of it all places them, but she privately remarks that she thinks it’s likely over.

“No!” she argues, because it isn’t that at all. He looks at her then, giving her the _please don’t bullshit me, we’re past this_ look. Tessa observes him, considering his question. “Alright. Uh, please don’t take this in the wrong way. I like”—or, well, _liked_ —“Kayla. She’s kind, treats you well, from what I’ve seen, and she’s hilarious. And she understands… me. Or, us.”

Scott makes a noise of acceptance, knowing there’s more. “But?”

Tessa takes a deep breath. “Um… but, I don’t really understand why you were together. You’ve been together for like… eight months. Which is a while. But coaching means you’re in Montréal most of the time, and you barely saw her…”

Scott’s eyes flicker downward. “That isn’t a question.”

“You’re just being difficult, now,” she says lightly. “Come on. We’re past the fighting; tell me honestly. You know what I’m asking.”

He’s quiet, then begins tiredly: “I know that I’m always in these long-term relationships, but… it’s been hard for me. I like commitment, like the comfortability of dating someone for a while. But I don’t really know… how to do the _real_ long-term thing. I’m… bad at it.”

He looks so uncomfortable in admitting this, but Tessa is confused. “I’m sure that’s not true. I think you’d be a great boyfriend when it really counts,” Tessa says to him, thoughtfully. “You’re kind, and loving, and supportive. Understanding. Why would you be bad at it?”

Scott lets out this breathy laugh. “Well, thanks. It’s just,” he takes a moment to pause, seemingly frustrated with himself, then pushes past it. “There’s so much of me. So much inside me. All this emotion and it’s all… expendable. I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve already… given so much of myself, you know? To the relationships already in my life. And… I’m just not sure exactly how new relationships fit into it, into who I already am and who I already…”

He turns quiet. “Who you already…?” Tessa prompts.

Scott shakes his head. “Never mind. I’m saying that: I guess you’re right, as much as I hate to admit it. I don’t date people who are entirely present in my life, for some reason. Maybe I’m… afraid. Or maybe… maybe I don’t know how to really love people, when they’re there all the time.”

Her breath catches in her throat. “That’s impossible. You… you’re so good at being there for _me_.” _You’re good at loving me_ , she wants to say, but she knows it’s different to him, the way he loves his girlfriends and the way he loves her, his best friend.

He shakes his head. “I guess it’s because there’s always been—”

Scott stops abruptly, holding in the words. She’s curious though, and her heart speeds up in her chest when she hears what he’s said. “What?” she asks him, quietly.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.” Brushing past it, he looks at her in interest. “What about what I said to you?”

She licks her lips nervously. “What about it?”

He’s more fond than she deserves in response to her stubbornness. “Tess, come on.”

She sighs. “You’re right, of course,” she tells him begrudgingly. “Are you happy now?”

He looks at her sadly, then shakes his head. “No. I always wanted you to find love and happiness.”

“I have love and happiness,” she replies. “Maybe not… that. But I lived a full and happy life.”

He acknowledges this acceptingly, saying, “Still. I just wanted you to be as happy as you could possibly be. Because you deserve it.”

She shuffles forward on the bed, grasping his hand. “And all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, too,” she responds. He shifts their handhold, grasping her wrist, and pulls her into him, hiding his face in her neck as he wraps around her. She melts against him, knowing this is a _thank you_ and an _I’m sorry_ in one. Her hand fists in his hair and she moves closer, as close as she can, and she whispers into his ear, “I’m sorry.”

She can’t be sure, but she thinks she can feel the whisper of a kiss against the underside of her jawline. “I’m sorry, too, T.”

She wonders what they’re apologizing for. The fight, the hurt, the fact that they’re dead and their lives are over and they’ve lost everything other than one another—it could be anything.

But for now, it doesn’t matter what it is. Here, with him by her side, it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a spare moment, please let me know if this made you feel something. Nervous and excited, as always, to hear what you guys think. <3
> 
> Playlist found on Spotify [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/07ihbxgorwgengd149w7ttpzu/playlist/39sNN9bdCq0Ky4cFGVr82g?si=HeTLkCHDR6eJSLP9c08MKw). You can find me on my [writing Tumblr](http://falsettodrop.tumblr.com), or for fandom, on my [sideblog](http://viewsfromthestyx.tumblr.com).


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